People often have preconceptions.
If there’s a monster designed to look so overwhelming that everyone thinks, There’s no way anyone can beat that, then people naturally start thinking exactly that: There’s absolutely no way to beat it.
Funny, isn’t it.
I really don’t get why that’s the first conclusion they jump to. Sure, in this death game, being cautious is only natural. But at the very least, shouldn’t people be suspicious?
Like this:
What would happen if you actually took down something that was supposed to be impossible?
Even if countless beta testers had already gone through it and confirmed the results, I still found it more believable that this had originally been a defense quest where you just held out, and once you chose between the two NPCs, the side you opposed would become an indestructible object and take no damage at all.
But the Forest Elf that had just vanished into polygons hadn’t been taking fixed damage of 1 or anything like that. It had been taking a set amount of real damage. That clearly suggested there had to be one more option left open.
And the fact that the real outcome was now unfolding right in front of us was proof enough.
"Uh... uh..."
As both Kirito and I knew, the campaign quest we called [Secret of the Jade Key] had followed a fixed sequence up until now.
No matter which side you supported, both elves died. Then the elf from the side you had helped would give the player a quest to deliver a pouch containing the Jade Key. Naturally, the destination would be the elves’ camp, either to the north or the south depending on the side.
Once you got there and handed it over to the commander, the next quest would begin.
But like I said before, we had chosen a different route. No, "chosen" wasn’t quite the right word. "Stumbled onto" fit better. We hadn’t expected this either.
Anyway, this was where the real problem started. Since we weren’t on the original route anymore, the quest details could change a little—or a lot. In other words, the story was now heading into completely unknown territory.
While I quietly watched the dark elf with that in mind, Kirito still stood there babbling in shock. In the meantime, the Forest Elf disappeared completely with a faint cracking sound, leaving behind the familiar quest item: the leaf pouch.
"Uh... um... wh-what exactly is this supposed to be...?"
Speaking stiffly like a broken doll, Kirito awkwardly pointed out the leaf pouch. Asuna tried to pick it up, but Kirito hurriedly stopped her. Hearing his voice, Kizmel finally reacted.
She bent down and carefully picked up the pouch with both hands in black leather gloves. Holding it close to her chest, she let out a long breath of relief.
"...Now we should be able to protect the cathedral for a while..."
Murmuring quietly, she slipped the pouch into the pouch at her waist, straightened up, and looked at us.
Thankfully, thanks to Kirito stopping Asuna in time, things ended without any misunderstanding. Of course, he’d probably still have to sit through a lecture later. Good luck with that, Kirito.
"...Ka-Kazuma. Thanks for saving me..."
Apparently coming to her senses only now, Kazuha thanked me from behind.
"It’s nothing. I’m just glad you’ve improved so much. Holding out against that kind of level gap isn’t easy."
"Oh, really? Then that’s good... I seriously thought I was dead for sure."
"The original quest condition was just to drop below half HP, so you probably wouldn’t have died that easily anyway."
"Huh...? The original... quest?"
"Yeah. It’s a long story, but for now, just think of it as us getting a completely different quest now. One neither Kirito nor I know anything about. A perfectly unknown quest."
That made Kazuha look uneasy again, but maybe seeing that I wasn’t worried calmed her down, because her expression soon softened.
"...Then I suppose I should thank you."
Living up to the title of Royal Guard, the dark elf offered a disciplined, knightly salute before continuing.
"Thanks to you, I was able to protect the first key. I am grateful for your aid. I am sure the commander will reward you as well, so how about accompanying me to the camp?"
As if that line itself signaled the start of the quest, a question-mark quest icon blinked into view.
"What should we do? It’s not too bad yet, but clearing the Second Floor and then jumping straight into a quest like this... I need to manage my fatigue parameter, and I’m not sure if this is still a safe level..."
Just as Kirito said, fatigue in a game—in a virtual reality world—didn’t build up in the body, but in the brain. If you pushed too hard, it could all come crashing down at once like water bursting through a dam.
Maybe she had already thought that far ahead, because unlike Kirito, who was still muttering to himself, Asuna stepped forward at once and answered the dark elf.
"Then we’ll gladly accept."
"Good. The camp lies beyond the southern edge of the forest."
Kirito saw the question mark above the dark elf’s head vanish, confirming the quest had progressed, and this time he looked completely dumbfounded.
"..."
Not knowing what to say, he just stared. I tossed him a casual remark.
"You’re thinking, For an AI, this is absurdly advanced, aren’t you?"
"...! H-how did you..."
"I know a bit about this sort of thing too. It’s possible, so don’t be too shocked."
I gave his shoulder a light pat as if to comfort him, then followed after Asuna with Kazuha.
On the left side of my vision, the party window—now expanded to five members—showed a new HP bar, along with the dark elf’s name: [Kizmel: Dark Elven Royal Guard].
Then I’ll be counting on you, Kizmel.
I quietly addressed our new companion in my mind.
**
After that, things moved much more smoothly than I’d expected. We had worried about the monsters we might run into on the way to the camp, but Kizmel handled that problem so cleanly it barely even counted as one.
She was basically a high-level elite mob that had no business existing on the Third Floor, and with a single slash, she cut down every monster that stood in our way. In practice, the amount of time we lost to monsters was almost zero, so we just kept moving forward at full speed.
At one point, I briefly wondered whether the foggy forest would throw off our sense of direction, but according to Kirito, since she was an elf, we apparently didn’t need to worry about getting lost.
And yes, I may or may not have let slip a rather greedy thought about dragging this elf mob around and using her to wipe out all the nearby monsters... but Asuna immediately shut that down at the speed of light and kept glaring at me for a while afterward.
Efficient, sure—but if we provoked an NPC we weren’t close to yet, things could easily go bad.
"We got here pretty easily."
Asuna said that from beside me, and I immediately agreed. She wasn’t wrong. We had made it from the middle of the dungeon all the way to the northern edge in barely fifteen minutes.
Maybe Kizmel had heard her, because she stopped, turned around, and said in a tone that sounded—perhaps only to me—a little proud.
"The entire camp has been placed under the [Forest Veil] spell, so if you had come alone, you would not have found it so easily."
"A spell... That’s interesting. No matter how I think about it, that doesn’t sound like a Sword Skill or anything."
"Huh... If it’s a spell, is it magic? But there’s no magic in this world, is there?"
Asuna asked Kizmel directly, casually dropping into familiar speech. I was interested too, but since she’d already asked, there was no need for me to.
Because from what I knew, Kizmel’s whole concept of "spells" clearly contradicted SAO itself.
This game’s design concept was all about making players physically experience virtual reality through swords and other weapons. If you had magic where you just targeted coordinates or muttered a few words and launched attacks, then it would basically just turn into a shooting game.
Kirito looked a little troubled too, as if he was about to explain that to Asuna, but Kizmel spoke first.
"...What we use could hardly be called magic."
Her voice was slightly lacking in confidence as she continued.
"If I had to describe it, it is one of the few remnants of the great magic that existed in ancient times... Ever since we were severed from the land, our Ruis Na Ríg people lost all magic..."
Maybe Kizmel’s lament had shocked him, because Kirito’s eyes widened and he lowered his head as if deep in thought.
And I, too, began pulling together the questions that had been lingering in the back of my mind.
Come to think of it, SAO—Sword Art Online—was, by classification, a VRMMORPG.
And in an RPG, aside from things like impact and gameplay, there was one element that absolutely could not be left out.
Story.
A story was what gave the world shape and told players living in that setting what kind of world this was and what direction they were meant to move in. It was a vital element. But in this game, that part had been strangely underdeveloped.
Back when I’d searched through all kinds of media for information on the game, I’d found almost nothing detailed when it came to the world setting.
Now that this place had become a death game, we had the clear goal of reaching the hundredth floor. But quests—one of the means of growing stronger to achieve that goal—placed enormous weight on background lore like this.
If that was the case, then maybe this had been intentional on the creator’s part. Maybe this was his message: find it yourselves, change it yourselves, and build the world as you go.
"...Elia. From now on, upload every quest. Important or not, all of them."
"Kazuma... has something changed?"
"All of a sudden... I want to know this world."
That was right. What exactly was the Kingdom of Ruis Na Ríg Kizmel had mentioned? When had it existed, and where? If it had existed, how had it come to be inside this floating castle? Any one of those details could become a quest—or a hint for the next floor.
But asking that of the dark elf standing in front of us now, still weighed down by grief, would have been cruel. To begin with, I didn’t even know whether her "authority" as an NPC extended that far.
"So there used to be magic in ancient times... Is that part of this world’s setting? What do you think, Kazuma?"
Kazuha seemed fascinated by the story too, and asked me. Well, without school or student life tying her down right now, stories like myths and legends were the kind of thing anyone might find interesting, quest or no quest.
"Who knows... I’m curious too. But that’s probably something we’ll have to uncover little by little from here on out. We’re only on the Third Floor, after all."
"If we could use magic, what do you think it’d be like? Would this death game have been easier to clear?"
It was only a hypothetical, but the idea was amusing enough to make me laugh quietly.
"Sure, if the kind of magic you’re imagining existed, maybe we could’ve cleared things a little faster. But if the boss monsters started by taking out the back line first, then with party size limits, your whole fighting force would vanish in an instant. Magic users are always frail, aren’t they?"
"Ah... right."
"Anyone would think that way, but if I were the one designing this game, I’d have set the boss monsters to prioritize whoever in the rear had the lowest HP."
"Whoa... Kazuma, that’s evil."
"I’d prefer if you called it efficient and rational thinking. I’m talking from the boss monster’s perspective, after all."
I shrugged like it was nothing, and after that I kept chatting with Kazuha for a while longer.
**
As we walked, we finally spotted a black flag fluttering at the far edge of our vision through the dense fog. Then, as if by magic, the fog suddenly cleared, and our view opened up all at once.
The mountain ridges visible beyond the camp stretched on in layers, naturally suggesting that this was the edge of the floor.
"So this is the camp... I see. Since there are towns or territories to the east and west, it makes sense that this would naturally be at the northern or southern end."
"Kazuma, there are two powerful reactions ahead."
Murmuring under my breath as I scanned the entire area, I turned my gaze toward the entrance at Elia’s words.
There were pillars on either side of a ravine a little over five meters wide.
In front of what looked like the entrance stood dark elf guards in even heavier armor than Kizmel—though honestly, it still only looked a little heavier than mine.
Holding crescent-bladed polearms—glaives, in English—upright, they stood watch as Kizmel strode toward them without hesitation.
"...I doubt it, but there won’t suddenly be a battle inside this camp, right?"
"Mm... probably not. If we don’t attack them. Even if we did, it’d probably just end with the quest being canceled and us getting thrown out."
Since everyone except Kirito was experiencing something like this for the first time, it made sense that they were on edge.
Still, there was no way they’d bring us all the way here just to refuse us entry. And even if they wanted to, with Kizmel here, the system probably wouldn’t deliberately block us.
"Don’t worry so much. No matter how messed up this game is, they’re not going to stop us from completing a quest we’re supposed to complete, right?"
"But... what if this route doesn’t work because it’s the first time anyone’s taken it?"
Kazuha’s cautious objection was definitely possible. Even so, I smiled lightly and answered with certainty.
"If it doesn’t work, then we’ll make it work."
"K-Kazuma... that’s scary..."
For some reason, Kazuha shivered and took a step away from me.
...Huh? I thought that had been a pretty decent smile. But when I turned that same face toward Kirito and Asuna, both of them flinched and immediately grabbed each other’s hands despite all the bickering they’d been doing.
"Um, Kazuma? Did something make you mad?"
"Sorry. I don’t know what I did wrong either, but... sorry anyway."
Hm... that was more shocking than I expected. I should probably practice smiling more often.
"Kazuma, relax your mouth naturally!"
At some point Elia had shifted into cheering me on. I let out a small laugh and shook my head.
"No, it’s nothing. Let’s go. We shouldn’t keep Kizmel waiting."
With that, I headed for the entrance. Just as expected, the guards gave the four of us suspicious looks, but they still let us through.
After walking through the narrow ravine, the path suddenly opened into a circular space about fifty meters across.
There were around twenty black-and-purple tents set up there, and armed dark elves moved busily between them.
"Hmm... This terrain looks just like Hulukou."
"Oh, I know that one. It’s from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, right?"
Maybe because she’d finally heard something she recognized, Kazuha answered in a slightly excited tone.
"Yeah. Pretty interesting. It’d make a good fortress too."
"Huh... It’s bigger than it was in the beta..."
"? Does this place change often?"
"Yeah, but it’s not that strange. Spots related to campaign quests like this are usually instance maps..."
"Ah... right. If it’s instanced, that makes sense."
Unlike me, who accepted that explanation right away, Asuna and Kazuha tilted their heads.
"Inst... what?"
"Uh, a space that gets temporarily created for each party that accepts the quest... I guess that’s the easiest way to put it.
We’re about to talk to the dark elf commander and move the quest forward, right? But if another party with the same quest showed up at the same time, things would start contradicting each other.
Well, some quests just close off the spot while someone’s talking to the NPC, like the [Forest Elixir] quest back on the First Floor."
"To put it simply, it’s a one-time quest-only space made so players don’t get mixed up with each other."
After hearing both my explanation and Kirito’s, the two of them clapped their hands in understanding.
"Mm... So that means we’re not on the Third Floor map right now, but in a separate place that exists apart from it?"
Kirito nodded with satisfaction at Asuna’s guess.
"Exactly."
Then Kazuha’s eyes lit up as if she’d just realized something, and she quickly asked,
"We can leave whenever we want, right?"
**
After that, things went fairly simply. Our meeting with the commander of the dark elf advance force ended peacefully enough.
Kizmel’s role in the quest must have carried a lot of weight, because they trusted us without much trouble. More than anything, what probably convinced them was the fact that we had brought back the Jade Key they thought had been lost.
The commander had us each receive a quest reward and one piece of selectable equipment. Since none of them boosted stats enough to agonize over, I took a ring that increased Strength by 1, same as Kirito.
Kazuha seemed to spend a long time considering a saber shaped somewhat like a dao, but in the end it couldn’t beat the appeal of a Japanese sword, so she chose earrings that increased Agility, same as Asuna.
Then, after assigning us the quest that connected into Campaign Chapter 2, we left the tent.
"...We really ran nonstop today, more than I expected."
"Seriously... same here. I didn’t think it’d go on this long."
"Still, thanks to that, we got a quest route nobody else has. That alone feels like a win."
"Mm... I’m still a little uneasy, though."
As we each shared our thoughts and looked toward the setting sun, Kizmel—who had come out with us before we noticed—stretched broadly, as if it had been a long day for her too.
And when she looked at us right after, I could have sworn there was the faintest trace of a smile on the dark elf’s face.
"Human swordsmen, I thank you once again for your aid. I look forward to your help in the next operation as well."
"Yeah, same here."
"Uh, yeah. Me too."
"Come to think of it, I have not yet heard your names. What are they?"
Unlike Kizmel, who asked the question casually, both Kirito and I stiffened for a moment on the spot.
I’d felt it before, but now we were certain. Unlike other quest NPCs, this one had clearly developed something irregular.
In a normal game, this was usually where things returned to a simple relationship centered only on each person carrying out their role.
But for an NPC—not a player—to ask our names first was something else entirely. It went beyond the role of a simple quest NPC.
Hiding my unease, I answered calmly.
"Then let me introduce us. I’m Kazuma, the guy next to me is Kirito, the brown-haired girl is Asuna, and the black-haired girl is Kazuha."
"Hmm... Human names are a little difficult. That one was Kirito, was it?"
"I think it’s just the accent. Try raising it, then lowering it."
"Kirito. And that girl is Kazuha?"
"Yeah, your pronunciation of Kazuha is fine."
"You are Kazuma, and this woman is Asuna. Is that right?"
"Yeah. Other than Kirito, no real problems."
At my answer, Kizmel looked up at the sky for a moment and quietly repeated our names under her breath. She was probably going through the process of recognizing them as part of the quest’s progression.
"You may call me Kizmel... Then until the next operation begins, I will leave your time to you. If you wish to return to the human town, I can see you off with a spell. But if you prefer, you may rest in the tents here at the camp."
When I turned around to get everyone’s opinion, Kirito—more than Asuna or Kazuha—was sending me an overwhelmingly eager look of approval.
It wasn’t hard to tell that his expression was motivated by a desire to save on lodging costs, and since Asuna and Kazuha didn’t seem to mind either, I looked back at Kizmel and nodded.
"Then we’ll take you up on that. Thanks."
"There is no need to thank me. Though... this is a little awkward, because..."
Her tone was unexpectedly troubled. As Kizmel continued, Kirito’s face rapidly began to rot away. Huh? Had something gone wrong? As if confirming that thought, Kizmel immediately continued.
"...There is no spare tent, so you will have to sleep in mine. Fortunately, it is large enough for five people, though it may be a little cramped, so bear with it."
Ah, so that was how it worked. Normally, if Kizmel died, we would use her tent. But since she was alive, this was the situation we got instead. More importantly, everyone’s faces had changed in completely different ways.
Kizmel still looked perfectly calm. Kirito had gone beyond merely withering and was now evolving into full-on decay. Asuna had frozen stiff on the spot, while Kazuha’s face turned bright red and she started stammering. Hmm. So this was what chaos looked like.
At our age, the concept of sharing a bed didn’t really mean much to me yet. I didn’t think much of it, but apparently my friends felt differently.
Separate from those thoughts, Kizmel was looking at me as if waiting for my answer, so I nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, then we’ll be in your care."
"Good. I will remain in the camp, so if you need anything, call for me at any time. Then excuse me for now."
With that, the ever-composed Kizmel gave a small bow and headed straight toward what looked like the dining area. Guess she was hungry.
"Wh-what... Kazuma, why?"
"Uh... uh..."
"..."
A completely flustered Asuna hurriedly demanded an explanation. I thought about it for a second, then answered in a slightly questioning tone.
"...I felt like if I waited too long to answer, it’d be bad...?"
"Why are you making that a question?!"
Asuna’s near-scream drowned out my words. Then several expressions flashed across her face in quick succession before she suddenly turned to Kirito, as if she’d just thought of a brilliant idea.
"Kirito, if we go now, maybe we can still take it back—"
Before she could finish, her voice shrank as she looked at Kirito’s face, which was visibly decaying in real time. Soon silence settled over the whole space, and then Kirito gave Asuna a stiff smile and delivered the final blow.
"Sorry. It’s already too late."
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